Fourteen basement tape songs appeared in 1968 on a demo privately circulated by Dylan's publishing company, Dwarf Music.[2] Public awareness of the basement recordings increased with the release of the first bootleg, Great White Wonder, in 1969.[3] In 1975 CBS officially released The Basement Tapes, but only sixteen of the twenty-four songs were recorded by Dylan and the Band in Woodstock in 1967. The other eight tracks were recordings by the Band from different times.[4] Subsequently, more and more basement recordings have been unearthed and illicitly released, culminating in the release of a five-CD bootleg set in 1990, The Genuine Basement Tapes, containing 108 tracks.[5] Two songs, "I Shall Be Released" and "Santa-Fe" were officially released on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3 (Rare & Unreleased) 1961–1991 in 1991. "I'm Not There" was released on the soundtrack album accompanying the biographical film about Dylan, directed by Todd Haynes, named after the song. The songs of the Basement Tapes have been catalogued by Greil Marcus in his book Invisible Republic,[6] and by Sid Griffin in his critical study Million Dollar Bash: Bob Dylan, the Band, and the Basement Tapes.[7]

Levon Helm, who was absent for much of the Basement Tapes sessions,[12] is believed to be playing drums on both takes of this song, which makes the song one of the last recorded during the basement sessions, perhaps in late 1967 or early 1968.[13][14]

"Apple Suckling Tree" (takes 1 & 2)

Dylan

Griffin suggests this song features either Robertson on drums and Manuel on tambourine, or the other way around. It is written to the tune of "Frog Went A-Courting".[15] The second take, with some additional overdubs added, was released on the 1975 album.

A sketch for a song with half-completed lyrics with a rockabilly sound, including three guitar solos by Robbie Robertson, reminiscent of the Carl Perkins sound.[1]

"Edge of the Ocean"

Dylan

Previously unreleased on bootleg, this song was heard for the first time on The Basement Tapes Complete, and has been described as an early basement recording, made in Dylan's home in Woodstock before the move to Big Pink.[1]

Not really a cover of the song itself, it seems to be an improvisation begun by Dylan and the Hawks after being amused by Manuel playing a few seconds of "Flight of the Bumblebee",[23] with the lyrics sounding "as if it's poetry night in a 1956 San Francisco jazz club."[25]

Dylan ends the performance near the three minute mark, advising Garth Hudson not to record the performance as it is just “wasting tape". This song has been recorded by Woody Guthrie, Johnny Cash, and many others. During his Never Ending Tour, Dylan performed "On the Trail of the Buffalo" many times.[27]

"I Can't Come in With a Broken Heart"

Dylan

Described by Griffin as a one-chord rocker which fails to find the groove.[28]

Perhaps the most famous Basement Tapes number, and the most widely covered.[30] However, it was not included in the 1975 album. This 1967 recording was finally released by Sony in 1991 on The Bootleg Series Volumes 1–3.

"I'm Alright"

Dylan

Only a fragment.

"I'm a Fool for You"

Dylan

Rollins describes this as a song which Dylan begins to teach the Band, but never completes.[1]

One of the most famous and highly regarded outtakes, not just of the Basement Tapes, but Dylan's whole career. The 2007 film about Dylan entitled I'm Not There takes its title from this song, which was released on the film's soundtrack.[32]

Recorded by von Schmidt in 1963. Von Schmidt also taught Dylan the song “Baby, Let Me Follow You Down", written by Reverend Gary Davis which Dylan covered on his debut album in 1962 and also played in the 1966 shows with The Band for the world tour.

"Kickin’ My Dog Around"

Traditional

Two different accounts of the origins of this song have been published.[33][34]Alan Lomax published it as "The Hound Dawg Song" in his book, The Folk Songs of North America (1960), and suggests that the song's origins date back to the 1880s. The song has been credited to 19th century African-American minstrel performer James A. Bland, although this version descends into "a goofy call and response barnyard litany".[1] Sources agree earliest recorded version was released by Gid Tanner and his Skillet Lickers in 1928.

Griffin notes that Dylan recorded a song with the same title in a Glasgow hotel room in May 1966. This is a different song, described by Griffin as sounding like "a pounding outtake from Highway 61 Revisited."[36]

This Basement Tapes song was a hit for Manfred Mann in January 1968, reaching number one in the UK singles chart. Dylan's take one originally appeared on the first rock bootleg album, Great White Wonder, in 1969. Take two appeared on Dylan's 1985 compilation album Biograph.

Variation on "See You Later, Alligator". The title is coined by one of the members of The Band at the beginning of the first take, causing Dylan to laugh. Years later Robbie Robertson referred to some of these sessions as "reefer run amok".[citation needed] The first take ends abruptly, with Dylan giving instructions to erase the take.

"Silent Weekend"

Dylan

A Dylan composition described by Griffin as rockabilly, and suitable for a Ronnie Hawkins interpretation.[43]

Written by 'the cowboy poet' Charles Badger Clark, and published in 1915 as a poem: "A Border Affair"; it was later set to music by Billy Simon. Dylan subsequently recorded this song twice; the second version was released as the B-side of his 1971 single "Watching the River Flow"; the third version was released on Columbia's so-called "revenge album", Dylan, in 1973, but was recorded earlier, during the Self Portrait sessions in Nashville in 1969.[47]

"The Spanish Song" (takes 1 & 2)

Dylan

This song, and its partner Take 2, are bizarre recordings by Dylan and The Band, suggesting a high-spirited caricature of Spanish music. Griffin suggests that the improvised lyrics and encouraging laughter give these recordings the quality of a party tape.[48] Greil Marcus described these recording as "complete dementia with the spirit of Sam Peckinpah present to crack the whip".[49]

The first take of one of the most famous Basement Tapes songs. The song has gone on to be one of the most covered tunes from the basement sessions. The Band recorded their own version, which appeared as the opening track of their first album, Music From Big Pink. Take two breaks down, and take three was released on the 1975 album.

"Tiny Montgomery"

Dylan

Released on the 1975 album.

"Too Much of Nothing" (takes 1 and 2)

Dylan

Take one appears on the 1975 album, and is notably different in arrangement from take two, which appeared on Great White Wonder.

Released on The Basement Tapes Complete, this Dylan composition had not previously been heard on any bootleg. Critic Bill Wyman wrote: "Brooding and impeccably arranged, it is utterly sensational and unlike anything Dylan had recorded up to that point; it contains all the nuance and power he would (unsuccessfully) go for on the moodier tracks on Street-Legal ten years later.[50]

On the first take, the lyrics of this song are both improvised and absurd: "Now look here, dear soup, you must feed the cats/ The cats need feeding and you're the one to do it/ Get your hat and feed the cats/ You ain't goin' nowhere". The lyrics are tightened up by take two, providing a chance to hear Dylan's improvisational style of writing in action.[51] Dylan recorded this again, with slightly different lyrics, for Greatest Hits II.

One of the oldest songs in Dylan's repertoire. A recording exists of Dylan singing this song in Minneapolis in 1961. Although he has additional accompaniment, this recording sounds very similar to his 1961 rendition.[52]

^Greil Marcus wrote: "There is nothing like 'I'm Not There' in the rest of the basement recordings, or anywhere else in Bob Dylan’s career. Very quickly the listener is drawn into the sickly embrace of the music, its wash of half-heard, half-formed words and the increasing bitterness and despair behind them. Words are floated together in a dyslexia that is music itself – a dyslexia that seems to prove the claims of music over words, to see just how little words can achieve."; see Marcus, The Old, Weird America, pp. 198–204.

^"Dylan's approach never changed. Alone, as in 1961, or surrounded by Danko's deep bass, Manuel's lap Hawaiian guitar with his own guitar barely leading the music—it's so slow, it barely can be led; the melody pulls back against the singer—he gives himself up to the song, disappears into it, becoming all of its actors, with as much sympathy for the father as for the daughter as for the husband as for the son." Marcus, The Old, Weird America, p. 264.